I was in prison for ten days.

A really nice prison.

Actually, it was the Hilton Austin Airport. I was there for ten days last month for a training.

I had three full meals a day. Good meals, too. A little boring - same stuff repeated over and over, but nutritious, healthy meals.

I had access to a workout room. Not the nicest workout room, but it had stairmasters, treadmills, nautilus-like weight equipment, and stationary bikes. And it had a TV.

I had cable television (more or less) in my room, which was actually pretty spacious, although I did have to share it with someone I didn’t know until the training.

I didn’t have to clean up after myself. I had access to a gift shop, a bar, and all the mints I could handle.

I could have left, technically. I could have gone outside and taken a walk, although the hotel was literally one minute from the airport so there wasn’t really anywhere to walk to. Some of us did walk around the outside of the hotel once.

I could have gone into Austin, I just didn’t have the means, since I didn’t have a car.

I think that I probably had it better than most prisoners do. And I was miserable for most of those ten days.

There’s a lot to be said for having control over your own life. Anyone who is going to tell me that prisoners have it easy and prison is a country club should try being trapped in a really nice hotel without being able to leave. Even if I believed that that is what prison is like, I wouldn’t consider it a cake-walk. Especially after my ten days in Hilton Hell.